Political rats and useful idiots

The leading Finnish newspaper - Helsingin Sanomat - wrote in its editorial about members of right-wing popular parties in Europe by calling them "rats" escaping from their close relationship with president Vladimir Putin. That was noted by Jussi Halla-aho, the former chair of the True Finns, which is considered as the right-wing populist party of Finland, but which has never followed the Russian leaders. 

Halla-aho was wondering in his Twitter message chain, whether the newspaper - known as politically slightly liberal left - would also call many former leading politicians in Finland as "rats" due to their extreme closeness with Russians. He mentioned among others the former President Tarja Halonen and former Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen as well as the former Speaker of the Parliament of Finland and current Member of the Europarliament Eero Heinäluoma. 

Tarja Halonen has for decades had close and warm relationships with Vladimir Putin, and she insisted Finland to sign the Ottawa treaty, which eliminated anti-personnel landmines from the defense forces of Finland despite the ca. 1300 km common border with Russia. She also worked actively in 1990´s to leave Finland out of NATO when the Baltic countries joined it, and considered for very long that Russia would be on its way to a decent democracy.  

Paavo Lipponen has - since his retirement - made a lot of money as a consultant for a company that builds up the Nord Stream gas pipelines from Russia to Central Europe. Eero Heinäluoma - still in February 10th this year - acted as an advocate of Putin by explaining that deployment of defensive weapons in Russia's neighboring countries is a threat to Russia, and therefore western attitudes are a solid justification for its aggressive behavior against Ukraine. 

Halla-aho also noted that he or his party has no problem in calling European right-wing politicians (with close relationships to Putins administration) as "useful idots". He asked - obviously rhetorically - whether also the social democratic Prime Minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, would call Gerhard Schröder, Tarja Halonen, Paavo Lipponen or  Eero Heinäluoma - all social democrats - as "useful idiots".

Overall, Halla-aho pointed out that the difference between right-wing populists and social democrats is in their effect on European policy. The populists are in political marginal with no influence on the European decisions whereas social democrats are in the center of decision making - and therefore much more able to promote Russian interests in EU. Therefore their relationships, instead of powerless populists, to Russian administration should be in the focus of the press.

I think Halla-aho has a clear point here. 

Previous thoughts on the same topic:
Finland and NATO - problems to be solved
An ignorant mediahouse failed again in historical facts